


Snapshots

by greyskiesallclear



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Gen, it's a series of completely unconnected drabbles strap the fuck in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 23:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14460243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskiesallclear/pseuds/greyskiesallclear
Summary: there's a thousand thousand million story ideas out there I'm never going to properly expand on, so I thought I might as well publish what little I wrote for them here.





	1. we are not friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon-compliant. El Ferrol. Kennedy contemplates.

He woke to oppressive heat, the stink of sweat, the crushing realisation that he still lived. The last came like a blow to the gut. Incredible – at the same time his mind would not let him live and his body would not let him die. Archie had no tears left. Each new low reached could only be met with bitter laughter, at least inside his head.  
Perhaps I will go mad, he mused. Madder. Live out his days as a giggling lunatic, blissfully unaware of how far he had sunk. He felt strangely buoyed by the concept.

“See, there’s a smile,” Horatio said from his corner of the cell.

Archie’s good cheer washed out of him at once. No, that would never be allowed. He would never get off so easy, would he? Not with Acting Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower on the case. If Horatio had his way, Archie would probably end up posted back to England in a sea-chest, or smuggled out in a laundry hamper, or something. Carted safely home to be pitied and committed. Wouldn’t that be the most delicious irony? To be rescued only once he was beyond repair. He could see himself now, the pet invalid in slippers and strait-jacket, locked away forever as a living testament to Horatio’s saintliness. Maybe the man would put in to Portsmouth every six months to pay him a visit like a husband to his lonely wife.

He’d dreamed about Horatio. In the oubliette he’d hear Horatio’s voice and whip around to see nothing but limestone walls. Even before that, in the marches between prisons, he would hear snatches of conversation or glimpse a face in the crowd and his heart would leap, he’d think, he’s found me. Throughout that torturous week adrift in the jolly-boat he had replayed the same memories over and over - convinced he was minutes from death, he had determined to go out smiling, with a pang of fondness aching in his chest for a man who had stammered his own introduction but left his shipmates in the dust at half their age and twice their wit. Well, that had been a romantic fantasy, but it was one that gracious fate had decided against. A certain cold clarity came to him: at this stage, any death would do so long as it took.


	2. article 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon-era. themes of homophobia death and suicide.

they whipped him at the gratings,  
they tried him ‘neath the mast,   
they threw him down to drowning,  
he’s sleeping there at last.

i take his place and rank here,  
lieutenant of the watch,  
stare out to sea and dry a tear,  
my love’s heart never stopped.

sea-change gave him a tail-fin,  
sea’s pity gave him gills.  
he lives among the dolphins now,  
sharing in their kills.

oh captain, what’d he do to you?  
what wrong’s he done to me?  
which traitor murdered love for rules?  
which guilty man walks free?

the butcher take my hammock,  
midshipmen take my chest,  
the boatswain take my share of rum,  
my fam’ly take the rest.

i’m going down to drowning,  
my skin aches for the sea.  
i hear my lover calling;  
he’s waiting there for me.


End file.
